radish
9:22 PM - 24 September, 2004
Strangely enough I was trying to explain all this to my girlfriend recently, as being American she's not had the same exposure to dance music as europeans like myself. Anyhoo...I don't pretend to be an expert in all of the different genres, but here's a brief list of some:
House
You know this one right? Typically slower (120-130), vocals, more "acoustic" sounding instruments, melodic.
Deep House
Slower, more emphasis on the bassline, less top melody, sexy sounding tunes.
Trance
Faster, more synthetic, usually very "up" sounding. Lots of repetition (think a bunch of loops coming in and out rather than a typical song structure). Breakdowns - like a middle8 but longer. Often vocals, almost always female, usually mindless :) Percussion is drum-machine style rather than breakbeats. Very accessible. Trance also is used to cover what I call EuroDance, which is the saccharin pop from people like Ian van Dahl.
Progressive [House/Trance]
I've never got the difference between prog house and prog trance, so I call them both prog. The key here is minimalism. Drum loops, bassline, very slowly building - driving stuff. Perfect for DJs to layer and create very long mixes - essentially creating new compositions on the fly.
Tribal
Slightly out of my radar, but I'd usually call any house with an excess of percussion (esp bongos etc) Tribal.
Soul House
?? House with soul/gospel style vocals?
Psytrance
My understanding is this is trance but without the vocals, and without the "catchiness". Kind of like prog in that it's minimal, but like trance in that it's fast and melodic. Again maybe someone can fill in more.
And you missed some key ones:
Techno
Fast, completely non-acoustic, break beats, bleeps and bassline :)
HardStyle
Techno ++
Hard House
I've never understood this name. Hard House seems to have nothing to do with House, it's more akin to techno or trance in my book. Take trance, speed it up (a lot), pump up the bass and you're getting there.
There's a lot more...
